You ever think to yourself, “This entire idea was based on the title, not the other way around?” Because I’m pretty sure that’s what happened here. First, there was the movie Gnomeo & Juliet (it was fine, but there were too many songs, which is what some people like about movies but I never do.) I imagine that the producers were told they had enough money to make a sequel, then headed straight to the classics section of the library and stroked their beards, saying, “Frankengnome…Gnomecula…Anna Gnomenina…Gnomilocks…Little Red Riding Gnome…” until someone finally stumbled onto Arthur Conan Doyle in the crime section and thought, “Genius!” And then they had to try and fit a storyline about garden gnomes into a movie about Sherlock Holmes. Still! It wasn’t as terrible as my theory makes it out to be.

Gnomeo and Juliet are two garden gnomes who live together happily after the events of the first movie, which I’ve pretty much forgotten, but seemed to end well. Their owners up and move house and all of their garden ornaments to a new place in London, where everyone seems happy until the garden’s leaders hand over their leadership to Gnomeo and Juliet. Apparently, in this version of the world, garden gnomes are the ones who do all the garden design and planting, which is strange because I am very sure this is not a belief anyone has? (Is it?) Anyway, Juliet becomes immediately caught up in making the garden perfect for winter, and Gnomeo feels rejected, blah blah, they have a fight, all the other gnomes are stolen and the only person who can help is Sherlock Gnomes, who, like in all other versions of Sherlock Holmes, is a total jerk. Watson, his colleague, is constantly insulted by Sherlock, who walks all over him. Juliet sides with Sherlock because he Gets Things Done, while the offended Gnomeo is sympathetic to poor Watson, no one communicates their feelings properly, and in the meantime, all their abducted friends are off dancing to Elton John songs under the watchful eye of two possibly evil gargoyles. But why has someone captured them? Will they be saved before they find themselves smashed to tiny ceramic pieces?

While I did find the whole way that the movie started a bit ridiculous, it was still pretty entertaining, and the Rocket enjoyed it enough. My expectations for this were very very low, so it was nice to enjoy it, and there are a few jokes for the grown-ups and references to the original Sherlock Holmes books and the BBC tv version Sherlock, but sadly not the American version, called Elementary. (Sometimes I get annoyed when kids movies put in references to grown-up things that kids wouldn’t get, even though obviously I’m an adult who loves watching kids movies.) For me, it was about on par with Early Man, which looks better. Both of them suffer from Flimsy Reasons For The Entire Story To Happen, but still have Some Jokes. Next up on the to-see movie list: Isle of Dogs!